The folks here at MoM Towers aren’t going to win the World Cup anytime soon. Our team, Bitter Bastards FC, are just a few players short of a full squad and therefore wouldn’t qualify, so the German team has nothing to be worried about… Yet. We’re also not going to win Wimbledon, despite a small subset of us being pretty gosh-darn good at squash (they’re basically the same sport, one just has more passive aggressive connotations and a wall). Oscars? Probably not. Grammys? Unlikely. Nobel Peace Prize? Doubtful at best. Medals for making stunning drinks? Now you’re talking!

That’s right, that little preamble is leading up to us proudly showing off the medals our products scooped up at the prestigious International Wine & Spirits Competition 2014. We’re always immensely excited and grateful when the products we make are commended by the highly knowledgeable tasters behind these awarding bodies - it really does mean the world to us.

Cocktails galore! Not just on the blog though – these ones below will come right to your door. Not only are we bringing you Bramble Bar’s signature Affinity Cocktail as of today, but we also recently launched the 2014 vintage releases from The Handmade Cocktail Company. The latter including new additions as well as totally re-specced versions that have been improved significantly with even finer ingredients (no mean feat). These are exciting, tasty times, my friends.

First things first – Bramble Bar in Edinburgh. It’s awesome. For a while now they’ve been creating barrel-aged and bottle-aged Affinity Cocktails, which they serve at the bar in individual bottles for you to pour out yourself. (They’re pre-chilled and don’t require dilution.) We’re rather partial to a couple whenever we visit - it’s a perfect mix of Speyside single malt whisky and top quality vermouths (technically a red quinquina and a dry vermouth).

So – a few weeks back you may remember we launched a couple of ‘experimental’ cocktails - the Hanky Panky and the Boulevardier. The good news on this front is that the Hanky Panky has rapidly earned itself a promotion to the exalted ranks of the main series of the Handmade Cocktail company’s core offering, such was its popularity. I’ve just got to do a bit more mucking about with it (I’ve been experimenting with some of the fresh oak barrels we’ve recently acquired, and it takes exceptionally well to a bit of this – so it’s going to get some oak influence methinks) and with any luck it’ll be out before Christmas.